


Drink One Down

by Hayato (TheLennyBunny)



Series: Parallels [2]
Category: Katekyou Hitman Reborn!
Genre: Gen, Hurt/Comfort, I have a lot of Feelings about the neglect and bullying in khr, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, Recovery, Suicidal Thoughts, Tense Fuckery, most of them boil down to "bitter anger"
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-12
Updated: 2017-08-12
Packaged: 2018-12-14 13:56:55
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,748
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11784579
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheLennyBunny/pseuds/Hayato
Summary: A parallel to Sober Up. Having friends doesn't necessarily solve everything, but it does help.





	Drink One Down

**Author's Note:**

> so. hopefully this is the last depressing fic for a while, although depressing is frankly relative seeing as i mostly just consider this grim. but. well i explained my reasoning in the first part of this thing so oh well yall know the ride

Tsuna sat on his bed, contemplating. It was one of the rare times the house was quiet, the kids and Bianchi out with his mother and Reborn off to do whatever the hitman did when he wasn’t tormenting his student. Gokudera and Yamamoto had finally gone home, and he was left alone for the first time in a while. He had just taken a long, nice shower, because no one was there to shoot him or burst in and ruin it. 

But.

He shifted the towel, just enough covering him so no one would be traumatized if they ran in. Tsuna didn’t really care, though. He was focused more on the thin, long scars going from his hip to mid-thigh. They were old, the most recent already a raised line. He ran his fingers over them absent-mindedly. When he went into Dying Will mode, did anyone see these? Were they visible, ever peeking out?

He huffed something out that could have been a sigh, and went to put on a pair of boxers. They slipped from his mind after that.

* * *

 

The thing was, when Yamamoto was threatening suicide, Tsuna didn’t know what he felt. He saw the boy leaning over the railing, about to step over, and all that passed through his mind before he ran over was  _ Really? You too? _

He didn’t know how to comfort people, or how to reassure; he didn’t know how he managed to get the boy to safety, even after the fact. But he did know how to shield people, and that was what he ended up doing. He kept Yamamoto distracted from the whispers and looks, the  _ god, he’s one of them? That’s pathetic.  _ The  _ Wow, I wonder what’s  _ **_wrong_ ** _ with him?  _ Because as kind as he was the taller boy didn’t deserve it. Neither did Honda-san, or Michi, or any of the others that Tsuna had heard tried or succeeded. So Tsuna redirected it to him, made sure to slip up more whenever he hung out with the teen, even if it made his face burn with shame. At least, for once, he wasn’t also reaching for the razor at the same time. It made Yamamoto opening up to him, talking about therapy and his mother all the sweeter, too.

* * *

 

He never said anything about it before the craziness, didn’t see the point, didn’t want his mother to know how bad it was, how much it hurt to  _ exist _ -

He never said anything. That was the point. No one saw anyways, so why try to speak up.

Maybe that’s why no one ever gave him odd looks for being sullen, or always wanting to sleep, or even anything about his low grades. It wasn’t an issue, just his dame-ness. It was a future NEET acting out like any other teenager does. Except Tsuna hadn’t been this bad just a few years before, he could pull barely-passing grades as long as he tried and tried  _ hard _ . But at some point, it had felt like too much input for too little output, people still ridiculing him and acting like he shouldn’t even be allowed outside, the pity or contempt in the teachers’ eyes, the constant attacks from people who saw him as lesser. With that, the constant bruises, and Nana’s....  _ teasing _ , battering him every day without pause and no one to go to, no friends or family, he just... gave up. At some point.

Nana sighed when his grades dipped, patted him on the head and went on about being happy. He stopped keeping up with what she was saying when he was twelve.

(He never noticed her hovering, worried and worried and shoving it all into the back of her mind out of fear).

People laughed harder when his grades slipped, and everyone assumed the scars visible near his thighs in gym were from his own fool self getting hurt. Technically true, but it wasn’t unintentional. Not that that would change anything- they’d probably sneer harder, if they knew. That was the way of teenagers, cruel to fit in, to push out the outliers.

He was a large outlier.

So he spiralled further and further down, to the point where waking up was a chore, where keeping the cuts light took honest-to-god debate. And he kept quiet, because speaking up had never helped before.

And then Hibari shoved his way in, Reborn appeared a short month later, and all his walls slowly crumbled as his life went absolutely insane.

* * *

 

Tsuna stared down at the river, paused as they were while Ryohei yelled and Gokudera screeched and Yamamoto laughed. The tall teen had an arm slung around his shoulders, and Gokudera was a warm presence near him, radiating heat. The river rolled beneath them, a fast and roiling blue.

“Tsuna?” He peered up at Yamamoto. The other boy was watching him with the laser intensity he sometimes got, smile smaller than usual. “You alright?” Tsuna shook his head, pushing away the thoughts that had cropped up.

“It’s nothing, Yamamoto-kun. We should probably break those two up.” And they pulled the two away, Tsuna distracting Ryohei with the thought of doing a run. The upperclassman shot off like a bullet, yelling about seeing them tomorrow and something about Kyoko? Tsuna just shook his head, smiling. How he was the straight man nowadays, he didn’t know.

They left without further ado, talking about the homework no one but Gokudera was going to understand.

* * *

 

When Reborn appeared, Tsuna was... shocked. Worried, upset, because his mother had brought someone into their home without thinking, some weird baby-that-wasn’t, and no one else saw a problem with the scenario, didn’t react. And he was  _ angry _ , irrationally, burning, because why did she bother trying to help  _ now  _ instead of when he was slipping, why were the grades the only thing she saw? He didn’t make  _ that  _ much of an effort to hide what he did, just moved the bathroom cabinet’s floor and put his “supplies” there. It was obvious there was something there.

Wasn’t it?

* * *

 

Being shot was an experience, and not one he wanted to repeat. He had always thought... pills, or maybe the river. Even a rooftop would be better. Not a bullet between his eyes.

He let Reborn think it was because of Kyoko that he revived. No need to mention Hibari and the promise he had forced out of Tsuna. The flame was weak enough, as it was.

He doesn’t think the hitman really believed the lie himself, considering how he watched the barely-there flame sputter out the moment he reached the school.

* * *

_ The mafia was  _ **_insane_ ** , was the only thought echoing through his head as Tsuna ran fast as he could, hoping against hope the kids stayed safe because apparently  _ there were assassins????? WHY IS THIS HAPPENING TO HIM- _

And then suddenly Iemitsu is there and a scowling, tan man on a throne of all goddamn things, challenging him and basically saying he’ll be slaughtering Tsuna and his friends and isn’t that just nice? But Tsuna stands his ground even if he’s confused and not understanding, because Yamamoto and Gokudera are there, just as terrified and resolute, supporting him, and the kids are behind them and cowering.

He stays strong because he has pillars underneath him this time, keeping him afloat. He needs to be strong in return, not collapse on top of them. Reborn gives him odd looks, as if asking  _ how are you so calm, Dame-Tsuna?  _ but he ignores them, focuses on what will happen, who’s being endangered. Who’s risking themselves for him. It keeps him going, even when Iemitsu proves to be more spineless and he’s told he’ll be endangering his friends for an unwanted finality no matter what. He doesn’t matter in this, not really, not to him. What matters is the lives of his friends, and how he’s ruining them.

At some point, it occurred to him that they hadn’t considered anything other than sticking by him. He hugged them until they were flustered (Gokudera) or quiet (Yamamoto). It was nice.

* * *

 

The first time Hibari saw Tsuna after Reborn invaded, surrounded by his friends(?) as he was, he paused. Didn’t immediately go into a tirade, instead eyeing the mousy boy with a critical eye that made Tsuna freeze up and glare, gritting his teeth, because please, Hibari,  _ don’t say anything, pleasepleaseplease- _

“You have stayed away.” It wasn’t a question. Tsuna nodded anyways. Satisfaction tinted the prefect’s stare. “Good. Herbivores should not stray from the herd.” And then he went back to being a territorial asshole, and Tsuna breathed a sigh in relief, sliding easily into the straight man who tried to keep everyone from fighting. Sure, Kurokawa and Yamamoto were curious, and Reborn was burning a stare into his head, but it went better than he expected.

* * *

 

The battles were brutal in a way he hadn’t predicted. 

Sending off Ryohei to what seemed like the slaughter hurt inside, made him sick to the core and angry at himself. There was nothing else he could do, though. These battles were set in stone, and he’d be forced to watch them to the end. He scratched at his arms as Ryohei dodged and was hit and went sailing down, drawing blood and barely noticing. It took Lussuria’s knee and Yamamoto’s hand to make him stop, glancing down at the harsh rows he had left. It wasn’t the important thing, at the moment; what was important was that he could tackle Ryohei into a hug, grinning as the Cervello carted the Varia Sun off to who knows where.

“Tsuna, what happened?” Yamamoto asked after, when they were all huddled in Tsuna’s kitchen and trying not to make noise, nursing tea and basking in the relief. He was leaning into the mousy teen’s side, making sure Gokudera across from them couldn’t hear. Tsuna pretended he didn’t hear the underlying question, pretended it was just a clueless thing.

“I was just worried, Yamamoto-kun, you know how it can be.” And the other boy looked ready to protest because well, that wasn’t normal at all, but Tsuna continued, “And with tomorrow...” He looked up towards the stairs, where Lambo should be sleeping with the other kids and his mother. “...Don’t worry about me. Let’s focus on making sure I don’t have to bury a brother tomorrow.”

And that was the vein the other matches went along. The others would put themselves in danger, Tsuna would worry, and bit by bit the mask would crumble, his hard work failing as he got more and more worried, more stressed, more fatalistic about this all because they’re seriously fighting to the death over something he didn’t want, how messed up was that? But after the look that first night in Yamamoto’s eyes, he didn’t touch his arms again.

His legs were perfectly serviceable.

It’s not like Reborn tried to interrupt what little alone time he had, what with all the training he was already doing. Sure, it stung when he had to bail out Lambo and make sure no one else pulled sacrificial crap, but it kept him centered. Calm?

When Xanxus acted like he had pulled some great scheme when Hibari took down Gola Mosca and Nono was revealed, Tsuna just watched him. Calm, centered, letting the aches from training and burning from his legs keep him still. The bullet certainly helped, but the shroud it always had over him didn’t fade when he saw the man inside.

“You’ve killed the ninth!” He jeered. Tsuna gave him a bland look.

“You willingly put him in a death machine.” Which, hey, pissed off the crazy guy some more, but it kept the spiel short and let Tsuna have his moral crisis under his blanket instead of in front of strangers and his friends.

“Killed him.” Sure, yeah. The only person Tsuna was ever going to willingly kill was in the mirror.

* * *

 

Sometimes, when he woke up, it was just before light, before Reborn would normally crash in with a bang and pain, and Tsuna spent the hour or so of quiet staring at his window. He didn’t quite think of anything, not really, letting abstract feelings drift through his mind. Here, he didn’t have to exaggerate, act like he felt anything at the craziness. No yelling at Gokudera, no sweating over Reborn’s training. He could just sit in the apathy and not think.

* * *

 

Tsuna should have realised that having more people in his life who cared would lead to trouble. For some reason, that fact had never sunk in, never really cemented permanently in his mind. Oh, Yamamoto and Gokudera like to be around him every day, okay. Oh, Reborn and Bianchi and the kids are going to live with him now, okay. Oh, Hibari will likely send him to the hospital if he finds out what Tsuna still did to himself, okay.

It still didn’t process to anything until Yamamoto came back in from the bathroom, and he taken quite a while had he been waylaid by the kids?- shaking and breath hitching and making everyone quiet. The tall boy set down a small bag, and oh, Tsuna hadn’t considered that, at all. 

“Tsuna,” He said carefully, and Tsuna flinched, burst into motion, grabbing the bag up and cradling it, frowning. “Tsuna,  _ why- _ ?”

“Juudaime? What’s going on?” Tsuna weighed his options. He couldn’t hide it, couldn’t laugh it off. Yamamoto had obviously gone looking for it, and Reborn wouldn’t let it go after seeing their reactions, neither would Gokudera. He’d given himself away, reacting like that, too.

He didn’t want to talk about this though. Fuck.

He dumped the bag out on the floor.

They got the bare bones out him, Reborn making the air heavier and heavier the more Tsuna tried to skirt around the topic. Yes, he used the blades to hurt himself. Yes, he was depressed, he supposed, it wasn’t really something he contemplated (ahaahaahaha-). No, he was getting better, it had been a while since he’d done anything, don’t worry-

Except Reborn had shot the space centimeters from his foot when he said that. Said in a serious voice, deep and not like his usual hyped-up squeak, telling Gokudera and Yamamoto to leave, they could talk to Tsuna later, pointed his gun at the bomber when he tried to argue.

Told Tsuna to strip once they’d shut the door behind them.

Tsuna complied. Shirked up his boxers, because he knew what the hitman wanted to see. Let him thumb at the scars, even when he wanted to shrink away and scream instead.

“I’ve hit you with the Dying Will bullet at least thirty times.” A pause. “You should be dead by now.”

Tsuna smiled. It was not a good smile. “Hibari-senpai is a good deterrent.”

* * *

 

Hibari, when it came down to it, was territorial of Namimori-chuu and all that came with it; this, in a way, meant that all the students who passed through the school’s halls were somehow  _ his _ , in his eyes.

Hibari, it also seemed, did not like for his things to break.

That horrible evening, when the upperclassmen see Tsuna on the bridge and take his choice away, Hibari notices. Or one of the disciplinary members may have, now that Tsuna thought about it, and Hibari simply followed up on their word. He didn’t know. It didn’t change that the upperclassmen ended up in the hospital, while Tsuna was resuscitated by a desperate, horrified Kusakabe Tetsuya.

The first thing he says when he had coughed his lungs out was, “ _ Why did you pull me out? _ ”, which may have been a mistake on his part. The jury was still out on that one, split between  _ let me die already  _ and  _ someone cared-? _ The committee chairman takes a long look at him, considers his words, looks ready to say something before Hibari storms over, still leaking bloodlust.

They start to talk, Hibari tries to- interrogate him? Except Tsuna’s exhausted, after nearly drowning, and slips back into the fuzzy darkness that he had approached while in the water.

Inexplicably, waking up in an unknown place wearing someone else’s yukata did not alarm Tsuna as much as it probably should have. The fact that someone had undressed him, though, that panics him just a little.

He sits up, and the pompadoured idiot who had been watching him shouts. Which makes Tsuna scream, because  _ Jesus _ . The minion says something, Tsuna hears Hibari's name in there somewhere, and watches him run off in pure confusion. 

He’s halfway down the hallway before the someone finally appears. Hibari had no qualms in clotheslining him before tossing him back into the room.

Why were you at the bridge at such an hour, he asks, Students of Namimori-chuu should not be loitering at such areas. Tsuna doesn’t have a satisfactory answer. What are the scars on your legs, he asks next. Why are there so many. Why are they so precise.

No answer. Hibari recites, as if from a page his school record, declining grades and notes of repeated harassment. No participation in sports, in clubs, in the student council. Little interaction with other students. No attendance at cram schools. Observed to be sullen, withdrawn, non-confrontational, apathetic.

Explain, Sawada Tsunayoshi. Explain. Explain. Explain.

Tsuna explains.

* * *

 

Reborn forces him downstairs. Lets him dress, gives him that dignity. It is not a comforting one. Takes the bag before the boy can touch (hide) it. Nana is cooking, talking to Bianchi, listening to the children screaming in the backyard. Tsuna looks at her, feels the noose around his neck tighten. The ring on his hand is a brand. The scars are needles.

Nana stops cooking when she sees them. She is a smart woman, when things are a little less subtle. She gives them her full attention as Reborn sits her down at sets the bag on the table. Explains what Tsuna’s been doing, how they found out. His voice is steady, nothing showing through. Tsuna briefly wonders how this sort of thing is treated inside the mafia, and not in a civilian home.

Probably worse.

And now Nana’s crying.

“Why?” People keep asking that. Tsuna can only look at her blankly.

“Because I’m Dame-Tsuna.” And that seems to confuse them, they’re getting the wrong idea, he can feel it, so he explains the logic, what’s been sitting in the back of his head since he was ten and gave up.

“I’m Dame-Tsuna. No one likes me. No one wants me. I’m a waste of space that’s only good for laughing at when he trips over nothing. Keeping my grades up didn’t change that. Trying to make friends didn’t change that. The only people who didn’t call me worthless before you hired Reborn were the ones who fished me out of the river when I tried to jump.”

* * *

 

Hibari is quiet when Tsuna finishes, staring with laser intensity. He taps at Tsuna’s right thigh. Scowls. _You will not do this again. You will not go near the river again._

Tsuna agrees, because he values his bones not being broken, and agreeing with Hibari seems best. His answer satisfies the upperclassmen, and he is sent home in freshly-laundered clothes, bag and its contents almost a complete loss. He doesn’t particularly care.

Nana is worried when he gets home, hovering as he shoves his shoes off at the genkan and stumbles in. She accepts his excuse of losing track of time when spending time with friends. He does not have friends. She knows this.

He does not see her frown stretch deeper, or her eyes water. She focuses on being upbeat, scolding him as if nothing is wrong and hoping he is alright, wanting to ask but scared. He focuses on the ghost of Hibari’s fingers on his thigh, Kusakabe’s hands helping him cough out river water, the lost opportunity. It has been a very long time since anyone touched him in a nonviolent way besides Nana.

A month later, Reborn’s flyer is put in their mailbox.

* * *

 

Everyone looks upset. Genuinely upset. Tsuna is... confused.

“It’s...” He shifted a little in his seat. Nana had her head in her hands. “Um.” He glanced at the hitmen, hoping there might be some familiar ground there. There is not.

“I should have seen this.” Reborn says, tone resigned as he sifts through the bag. Tsuna doesn’t see why he would care. It must be obvious on his face, because the tiny man fixes him with a terrible glare. “I am supposed to be _ bettering  _ you, Tsunayoshi, not letting you fester.” He turns away, hopping towards the coffee maker. “Will have to look into a discrete therapist, maybe Tsuyoshi’s...” He trails off with a mutter.

Tsuna wants to say something to that, wants to somehow express his utter...  _ something _ , but he’s enveloped in arms before he can. He stiffens and relaxes in turns, recognising Nana’s hands round his sides and her face in his hair.

“ _ ‘m sorry, I’m so sorry Tsuna-kun _ .” He goes to pat her awkwardly, grimacing, but she pulls away. A frown is an alien expression on her face. “Don’t comfort- I’m supposed to be supporting you, Tsu-kun, don’t comfort me when I’m the one who- who-” She buries her head in his hair again, and Tsuna feels a sick satisfaction at it, her being upset and realising just how badly things had gone.

He promptly feels sick with himself and pushes the feeling away. He notices Bianchi herding the children outside, likely taking them away from the house. 

“Tsunayoshi.” Reborn is back in front of him, mug of coffee in hand and expression serious. “How long have you been doing this, felt like this?”

“I...” He thinks back. “Does- does it really matter?”

That’s the wrong thing to say, apparently, because the adults’ faces darken.

“ _ Yes  _ it matters, Tsuna, because we happen to  _ care _ about you, and this is an  _ issue _ . You need help, and we need to understand the details to actually get you it.” 

Tsuna flinched and considered that. Nana’s teary and her face is still set in a moue of self-hatred and guilt, while Reborn’s a blank canvas radiating unseen displeasure. But. It’s not directed him. The negativity, he can tell, it’s directed at themselves, at the situation. The only thing they feel towards him is.. Worry. They’re both looking at him, patient, listening. There’s no derision, no waving away, no talking over. He looks between the duo and slowly curls in on himself.

“...It started when I was ten, I think...”

**Author's Note:**

> Come yell with me on tumblr!  
> thenightisdarkandfullofbooty.tumblr.com


End file.
